The Case for Persona 6 Royal

Persona 5 Royal is a textbook example of how to an expanded edition of a game right. Atlus didn't go into Persona 5 Royal trying to turn the whole game on its head. Rather, it wanted to add new kinds of content still similar to what fans loved about the original game, and it worked. The new social elements and activities around Tokyo offered Joker a whole new world of options on how to spend his free time. The combat was also sharpened and enhanced in lots of ways. Atlus even found a way to deepen and expand the story thanks to new characters and a whole new Palace for fans to explore.

Royal isn't just setting the bar in the general case, though. It's also defining the specific question of what Persona 6 will look like. Fans are optimistic that Atlus will have something to say about Persona 6 this year, considering it's the franchise's anniversary. No matter what Persona 6 is, a continuation of the Phantom Thieves' story or another chapter in the world of Personas, Persona 5 Royal will probably be the game it's compared to, not the vanilla version of Persona 5. Atlus has proven already that it can make a sprawling game with tons of engaging content and unbelievable replay value. Persona 6 should be like Persona 5 Royal from the start, rather than Persona 6 needing an expanded edition to get so big.

The power of Persona 5 Royal's tide of new content is twofold. For one thing, everything that Atlus added was meant to enhance features that were already in Persona 5 in one way or another. New activities like darts and billiards at Penguin Sniper cleverly combine the opportunity to work on Joker's relationships with the Phantom Thieves while also making his party stronger in combat. The partial opening of many new evening slots cleared up time to develop Social Skills, streamlining Confidant progression. Yoshizawa and Dr. Maruki, Persona 5 Royal's new Confidants, offered both valuable new abilities and a different way of looking at Persona 5's original story. The list goes on.

The other reason Royal's many expansions worked is that, on the whole, they're optional. Persona 5 Royal is definitely longer than Persona 5 thanks to Palace adjustments and new cutscenes, but the vast majority of the expansions or additions are optional. Royal never pressures fans into focusing on its new content; fans can play the game exactly the same way that they played the original game if they want. Because there's always room for another playthrough, Royal's content is also timeless and always new, no matter when fans make the time to engage with it. Royal's combination of side content building off of and playing into the core content with the lack of pressure on the player to do all the side content at once is a great blueprint for Persona 6.

There's a few good reasons that Persona 6 should follow in Royal's footsteps, whatever it's about. For one thing, fans will be expecting a game about the size and caliber of Persona 5 Royal anyway. It's the freshest mainline installment in the minds of fans, and so it's the most logical comparison. Persona 5 and Persona 5 Royal also served as gateways to the Persona franchise for a lot of new fans. These fans in particular want something that they can compare to the game that got them into the franchise. If a megalithic 100-hour game with more side content than one playthrough can muster is what fans are looking for, then it's probably what Atlus should provide.